Free Republic

An apparent internet service outage has disrupted operations on countless major websites including Google, Spotify, and Amazon Web Services.Around midday Thursday, outage monitoring service DownDetector.com reported widespread service disruptions across commonly used platforms like SnapChat and YouTube, with many social media users reporting difficulty accessing several sites.Some notable web services experiencing disruptions include: Spotify, Discord, Google and related services like Google Maps, Amazon Web Services, Cloudflare, SnapChat, YouTube, OpenAI, CharacterAI, FuboTV, Etsy, Vimeo, UPS, Shopify, Microsoft Azure, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Google Gemini, DoorDash, Calendly, Paramount+, IKEA, Twitch andMicrosoft 365.A full list of shuttered services can be found on DownDetector.com.Cloudflare, an...

Google has found a new way to police the speech of its users: scolding them for typing factual terms into its search bar. After a Justice Department lawsuit resulted in Texas ending in-state tuition for illegal aliens at state universities, I used Google to look up more details about the case. In response to the search “texas scholarships for illegal aliens,” the search engine’s AI overview slapped a patronizing warning at the top of the page, scolding me that “the term ‘illegal alien’ is considered pejorative and offensive.” “It is more accurate and respectful to use terms like ‘undocumented students’...

Apple heiress Laurene Powell Jobs, Google founder Eric Schmidt, and the George Soros-backed Tides Foundation are among the Democratic heavyweights bankrolling the anti-Israel charity of activist Kamau Franklin, who called Elias Rodriguez’s alleged assassination of two Israeli diplomats in Washington, D.C., a "morally righteous" act. Franklin runs Community Movement Builders, an Atlanta-based nonprofit that promotes "liberation" ideology for black Americans, Palestinians, and other groups. The organization embraces radical rhetoric in support of those causes, referring to police as "pigs" and calling the state of Israel "the result of a war crime." Last week, Franklin signed an open letter defending Rodriguez’s...

Google is launching AI Mode, a new AI-powered search feature for US-based users. After a short testing period in its Labs environment, the feature will be rolling out for everyone in the coming weeks via a new Search tab and the Google app. The company describes AI Mode as its “most powerful AI search, with more advanced reasoning and multimodality, and the ability to go deeper through follow-up questions and helpful links to the web.” New features of AI Mode include Deep Search with longer-than-usual, report-style responses, Search Live, which enables users to talk with Search about what they see...

[Note: What follows is a blog-post formatted version of the 34 page letter I submitted to the FTC on May 21, 2025 in response to the agency’s RFI entitled: “Request for Public Comment Regarding Technology Platform Censorship.” I have also added a section at the end on what you can do to save the open web from Google’s AI takeover.] In this letter I will explain how Google censored my travel website – and thousands of small and independent web publishers like me – all so that it can use AI to control the flow of information online. In late...

Security researcher Jeremiah Fowler stumbled upon a large database of login information and passwords containing over 184 million records recently. He mentioned the discovery in an article on Website Planet. The data was not encrypted in any form and stored publicly, which meant that anyone with knowledge of its existence could download the data. The sheer size of the database, more than 47 gigabytes of data, makes it one of the largest leaks in recent history. In early 2024, a 70 million records password dump was discovered. A preliminary sampling of the data unveiled emails, usernames, passwords, and also links...

Google is making an important change to Chrome on Windows. The browser will no longer run with administrator privileges by default. This change is designed with the intent to protect users from potentially malicious threats. As Bleeping Computer explains, when Chrome runs with administrator rights, any file that you download can pose a security risk. What that means is a malicious file that a user downloads could run with full system access, and in turn jeopardize the operating system. Microsoft Edge has a feature which was introduced in 2019 that prevents it from launching with elevated privileges. Edge displays a...

If we are about to be taken over by Artificial Intelligence Overlords, I know for a fact that Google is NOT behind it. Everyone on the planet knows that Google has become, well... The AI from Google is especially screwed up and gives the worst answers in the world. People were happy to share some of the worst examples. Seriously ... how does Google's AI suck SO bad?! It must be purposeful, right? ============================================================================= SEE THE MANY EXAMPLES AT THE LINK. TOO MANY TO POST, BUT GOOGLE NEEDS TO SUE TEMSELVES FOR THIS TRAVESTY....................BUT IT'S FUNNY AS HELL!..................

There comes a time in every man’s life when he must face the consequences of thinking for himself. For me, that moment arrived in a quiet digital knock at midnight—the “Community Guidelines Violation” email. Innocent enough on the surface. But it was the beginning of my journey through what can only be described as the Google Digital Re-Education Camp™. You think gulags are bad? Try being shadow banned so thoroughly your own mom can’t find your content. Welcome to Camp Compliance The invitation was simple: “Attend voluntarily or disappear algorithmically.” At first, I resisted. I figured I’d survive in the...

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has delivered a knockout punch to Google, securing a record-shattering $1.375 billion settlement for the Big Tech’s covert surveillance of everyday Americans. This staggering sum is nearly a billion dollars more than what 40 states combined were able to wring from Google for similar offenses — a testament to Paxton’s unrelenting crusade against Big Tech tyranny.

Mexico is suing Google for ignoring repeated requests not to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America on Google Maps for US users, President Claudia Sheinbaum says. She did not say where the lawsuit had been filed. Google did not respond to the BBC's request for comment. Sheinbaum's government contends that...the US lacks the authority to rename the entire gulf. In January, Sheinbaum wrote a letter to Google asking the firm to reconsider its decision to rename the Gulf of Mexico for US users. The following month, she threatened legal action. At the time, Google said it made...

An Oregon bill that would require big tech companies including Google and Meta to pay money to local newsrooms and journalists is steadily advancing despite protests from tech industry groups. The latest version of Senate Bill 686 would require companies of Google’s magnitude to pay at least $104 million annually to Oregon newsrooms and journalism programs. Companies of Meta’s scope would pay at least $18 million. Alternatively, companies could choose to undergo an arbitration process to determine a different payment amount. Lawmakers from both parties and numerous Oregon publishers have said the bill would be a financial lifeline for newsrooms...

A Jeep Wrangler EV parked at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View burst into flames Thursday before spreading to three other nearby vehicles, according to the Mountain View Fire Department. Firefighters responded at 4:53 p.m. to the report of smoke coming from a parking lot charging station in the 1300 block of Shorebird Way. Arriving crews found an active fire involving the Jeep EV along with two Teslas and a Honda. Using a preconnected hose line, firefighters got the flames under control and prevented the spread to additional vehicles in the area, MVFD said. No injuries were reported in the fire....

She didn’t avoid the elephant in the room. Former Vice President Kamala Harris emerged from political hibernation to deliver a stern rebuke of President Trump — before bizarrely shifting focus to a lighthearted video of elephants at the San Diego Zoo during an earthquake. “A lot of folks are wondering what’s going to guide us through this moment. How are we all going to figure out how to chart the course,” Harris said during her Wednesday address at Emerge’s 20th anniversary gala in San Francisco. “Please allow me, friends, to digress for a moment.” “Okay, it’s kind of dark in...

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA - While Christians have often complained of bias in the selection of which days Google honors with its "Google Doodles," believers around the country were reportedly ecstatic to find that the search and advertising giant chose to honor the empty tomb of Jesus on Easter morning with an empty homepage. While many significant holidays like International Women's Day, Labor Day, and "Celebrating Pad Thai" are honored with a specially designed Google logo for the day, the celebration of Jesus's resurrection was given the highest honor, with a completely unaltered Google homepage. "Just as Christ left a completely...

Today the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice prevailed in its second monopolization case against Google. In United States et al. v. Google, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia held that Google violated antitrust law by monopolizing open-web digital advertising markets. According to the Court, Google “harmed Google’s publishing customers, the competitive process, and, ultimately, consumers of information on the open web.” “This is a landmark victory in the ongoing fight to stop Google from monopolizing the digital public square,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “This Department of Justice will continue taking bold legal action...

Ok, sorry it has a paywall---this is only my review of it. Everyone needs to read this powerful book. It's DENSE, and took me about 4 hours to read, but the insight into how the big social tech companies are stealing our lives is important. Previously in my substacks I had written part 1, covering the first 1/3 of the book. This covers the last 2/3.

https://x.com/DOGE/status/1910728527776809457Department of Government Efficiency@DOGE·11hGood work by @USGSA for inking its first consolidated deal following the President’s Executive Order: Eliminating Waste and Saving Taxpayer Dollars by Consolidating Procurement.With this deal, GSA effectively used government-wide buying leverage to secure a 71% price reduction for Workspace, which will be available to all federal agencies. This will be the first of many bulk discounts as a result of centralized procurement.Apr 11, 2025 · 10.4M Views

Users beware: This ransomware poses a threat to precious data. The FBI has issued a warning regarding malicious malware that demands a ransom from victims in order to release their data. Dubbed “Medusa,” the “ransomware-as-a-service” has affected more than 300 known people “from a variety of critical infrastructure sectors” since it was first discovered in 2021, according to a recent advisory penned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center. In order to protect themselves, people can follow the agencies’ tips and tricks for securing accounts and personal...

Amazon, Google, and Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta have joined a growing list of energy-intensive companies calling for governments and utilities to triple nuclear power capacity by 2050, signaling a significant boost for the nuclear industry’s revival. The Financial Times reports that tech giants Amazon, Google, and Meta have stepped forward to support the goal of tripling nuclear power capacity by 2050. The companies, along with oil group Occidental and chemical producer Dow, signed a pledge coordinated by the World Nuclear Association (WNA), an advocacy group for the sector. This move follows a similar pledge made in September by 14 of the...